Posts by Ken Archer

It was clear to us early that Greig (pronounced "Greg") could win. The demographic shift in Ward 2 since 2000 has been tremendous, and Evans has not really tried to connect with the new young residents to understand their concerns. Neither did Evans' last opponent, Cary Silverman. Evans beat Cary Silverman in 2008 and a ragtag collection of opponents in 2000 by only 1,500 out of a total of 5,000 votes.

The response of voters to Greig's door-to-door canvassing was overwhelmingly positive. Greig's message of retaining young families by improving school options, parks and transit while applying her consulting expertise to re-engineer DC agencies instantly resonated with these voters on doorsteps across the ward.

While he's raised way more so far ($233,000) than he had at the same point in the 2008 campaign ($160,824), he's raised much less from Ward 2 individuals so far ($36,200) than he had at the same point in the 2008 campaign ($55,931). Where's the money coming from then? For starters, one developer in Maryland gave Evans $6,000 ($500 from each of his separately incorporated properties) while Clyde's Restaurant gave him $3,500 ($500 from each separately incorporated restaurant location).

While Greig was going door-to-door connecting with voters, Evans pursued a very different campaign strategy. He hired a private investigator.

We found this out when Greig received a phone call from a journalist asking about a list of 40 fundraising targets inadvertently included in the first filing of her exploratory committee by a volunteer. Greig explained the context and the journalist decided the story wasn't newsworthy. We called the Office of Campaign Finance, who told us that a private investigator had requested the file.

The next day another journalist contacted us about the embarrassing file, Greig explained the context, and the journalist didn't run the story. It was clear that Jack Evans' full-time campaign staff was shopping the file they had received from their private investigator to different journalists.

Meanwhile, Greig received a call at her home by someone she met at a campaign event telling her that Evans' staff knows about her husband's divorce, and the problematic timing of his divorce vis-a-vis their wedding in November of last year. Obviously few people knew such personal details of her family's life.

Finally, Evans' staff found a journalist to run the story and release the file of fundraising targets. Particularly embarrassing in the file was the volunteer's note that one of the targets was a gay colleague of Greig's at McKinsey.

No mention was made about Greig's testimony earlier in the week to the DC Council on the alarming rise in hate crimes in the District. In fact, few journalists covered the hate crimes hearing at all. The minutiae of campaign missteps was more important than the rash of violence this summer against members of the transgender community.

Last week, I walked to Greig's house during all this drama, talking on my cell about the campaign to a colleague while I walked, and noticed a man walking close behind me smoking a cigar. When I stopped in front of Greig's house, he stopped. He then kept walking and then turned around to pace up and down her block about a dozen times. Greig's husband arrived later pushing Ella in a stroller, talking to friend on the phone. We told him about the investigator pacing the block and he came inside.

And that's just the intimidation from Evans' private investigator. Chair Anita Bonds of the DC Democratic Party, for example, refused to return our repeated phone calls and emails requesting to purchase enhanced voter data that the party resells to candidates. At the end of all of this, Greig considered her wonderful husband of one year, her beautiful new daughter, and decided that it wasn't worth it. I can't say I blame her.

Should she have expected these hardball tactics? Probably. But ask yourself this. How many other talented young individuals in DC have made the same decision to avoid politics? DC residents complain all the time about our councilmembers. But we can't complain about our representatives while defending the process that keeps better people from running.

It's a shame that Ward 2 voters now have no choice when it comes to their councilmember. I'm not discouraged, though. Every day it seems more and more District residents are fed up with politics as usual. I'm hoping to hear from others in Ward 2 who want a more inclusive government, and are more interested in digging through budgets than through an insurgent candidate's trash.

The District owns three Skoda-Inekon 12-Trio streetcars, currently parked at Metro's Greenbelt yard. They were built by a joint venture between Skoda and Inekon, another Czech streetcar manufacturer. The joint venture dissolved around the time DC's streetcars were being constructed, and the 15T is the latest model introduced by Skoda while Inekon has not produced any subsequent models. Riga, Latvia has also purchased the Skoda 15T streetcars.

Any vehicle powered by an on-board internal combustion engine generates more noise than one powered by electricity, be it from a battery or from an overhead or underground wire. Modern streetcars are even quieter than the trolleys that were commonplace in the early and mid 20th century.

Buses are the source of DC residents' particularly frequent traffic noise complaints. As streetcars being operation in DC and replacing buses on the busiest routes, the benefit to the quality of our daily lives and the enjoyability of our urban spaces will be significant. Newer streetcar models will further boost the mode's advantage.

Now if only there were a way to push emergency vehicles speedily through traffic without sirens...

This job migration is almost certain to continue given Georgetown neighbors' recent success in blocking GU's plans to expand the main campus. Mayor Vincent Gray seems very aware of the problem this creates for the District, given that the Education and Health Care job sector is the District's, and the nation's, fastest-growing.

That's why he voiced concerns at a Jobs Summit about the limitations sometimes placed on employees and students to address town-gown conflicts. "I need to understand more about what these [university] jobs would be and reasons for those caps," Gray said. "Historically, there have been tensions between the universities and the neighborhoods in which they reside."

Some growth advocates criticize neighbors for opposing growth on campus without equivalent on-campus housing, and will undoubtedly do so in the comments to this article. The reality is that town-gown disputes are not new and are not going away, so we must learn how to address the concerns of neighbors without losing education jobs. Mayor Gray and other city leaders can and must do just that.

Earlier this year, in response to community opposition to its Campus Plan, GU committed to relocate "1,000 School of Continuing Students students to an off-campus location by Dec. 31, 2013." While one would assume that those SCS students will also go to the Clarendon campus, GU says it is "exploring potential transit-oriented locations elsewhere in the District." What can the District do to compete for those jobs?

To entice GU to build a satellite campus in DC, the District should offer to extend the H Street/Benning Road streetcar line onto GU's campus by a certain date. Specifically, the line would proceed without overhead wires on dedicated transit lanes along Pennsylvania Avenue and M Street, past Wisconsin Avenue and the Car Barn, joining mixed traffic at the Key Bridge intersection where it would reconnect to overhead wires and enter campus on the Canal Road entrance. The route would terminate in the parking lot outside McDonough Arena at the current Georgetown University Transportation Shuttle (GUTS) bus stops.

The streetcar line was initially anticipated to run along K Street in Georgetown. Recently departed DDOT Deputy Director Scott Kubly told the Georgetown BID, however, that he would prefer M Street in order to increase ridership. The M Street route, terminating on campus, would be a real win-win-win for every part of the city.

Improving DC residents' access to District jobs: 72% of DC jobs go to non-DC residents, and given the location of GU and GUH (DC's 6th largest employer) near the Key Bridge the percentage on campus is likely that or higher. A Streetcar onto campus would economically integrate the city, connecting residents around the city and particularly in Northeast with nearly 10,000 jobs on GU and GUH's campus. The much-expected future site of the GU Hospital on North Kehoe field would be a brief walk to a streetcar station in the McDonough Arena parking lot.

Creating GU jobs in DC: A streetcar terminating on GU's campus would provide door-to-door service to and from any satellite campus on the eastern half of the route. This will stem the flow of jobs from DC's top employer to Virginia. Furthermore, GU would face fewer constraints in the growth of its main campus because the congestion created by employees of and visitors to GU and GUH would be addressed. This route would eliminate the need for the controversial GUTS Shuttle to Dupont Circle, as it would include stops at Metro stations on several lines including Farragut North.

Improving Georgetown retail: Georgetown business leaders have experienced much angst lately about losing status to retail districts on 14th Street, U Street and H Street. Bringing streetcars along M Street on dedicated lanes would be a bold move to raise the strip's profile and cachet.

Historic preservation of Georgetown: Streetcars historically ran along M Street to the Car Barn. Any argument that a wireless streetcar on M Street somehow detracts from Georgetown's historic character would clearly be impossible to make. Furthermore, there would be no need for overhead wires as long as there are dedicated lanes.

Kubly explained to the Georgetown BID that the limits of current wireless technology are not in terms of distance, but in terms of time. Thus, a dedicated streetcar lane, meaning that streetcars won't waste valuable time (and thus electricity) sitting in traffic, significantly adds to the distance that a wireless streetcar can travel.

Reducing traffic and parking congestion in Georgetown: A couple years ago DDOT paid for a consultant to do a Transportation Study in Georgetown. One of the interesting findings was that congestion on M Street is at the intersections, and not in between them. Traffic analysis showed that the outside lanes were not used to capacity during rush hour, so the creation of transit only lanes should be able to shift traffic over one lane with minimal increase in congestion.

Even assuming no mode shift as a result of streetcars, then, dedicated transit lanes on M Street would likely result in little to no increase in congestion. Of course, there would be an expected mode shift not only to streetcars, but also to the bus lines that traverse M Street (which are the most-used Metrobus lines in the entire region).

The current fiscal environment makes it difficult to justify an investment in streetcar technology if it is merely viewed as a toy for the new, wealthier urbanites. But design it instead to improve access to jobs for DC residents, and sell it as such, and the project makes sense in just about any budget environment. In fact, few investments would result in as reliable and measurable an increase in jobs for DC residents as dramatically improving access to the largest employer in the city in return for that employer's expansion within the city.

Does the political will exist to do what makes so much sense?

On Wednesday, the Post reported the latest jobless numbers from July: 5.9% of the region-wide workforce lacks a job, a rate that is "well below the national rate of 9.1 percent". This represented an increase, according to the article, from the June rate of 5.8% due to a "steep decline" in the public sector which is "facing turmoil."

A similar report appeared about June unemployment. Joblessness in Ward 8 continued its increased from 16.9% in June 2008 to 28.2% in June 2011.

And the turmoil doesn't end there. Black teenage unemployment nationally is 40% according to the Labor Department, and is no doubt that or higher in the District, whose overall teen jobless rate is the highest in the nation at a whopping 50.1%. The jobless spike along with the housing crisis has destroyed black wealth, which has fallen from 1/7 that of whites in 1995 to 1/11 in 2004 and 1/19 in 2009 according to the Pew Research Center.

Unfortunately, the Post article on these statistics gave little attention to the issue of black unemployment. The only articles discussing the issue in the Post have mentioned it in the context of how it may affect President Obama's chances at re-election.

A Post blogger on media issues, Erik Wemple, who previously covered the District at TBD.com and the City Paper, posted recently on "How to measure the coverage of black issues." Wemple concludes:

Who's right? Has the coverage dipped or increased? Alas, even with Internet search engines and news archiving services, ascertaining volume trends over such a large coverage area is an undertaking fraught with practical and methodological problems.

Mayor Gray and President Obama will both announce new measures today to address unemployment. Leaders and journalists should ask the questions: What are the causes of the spike in crisis-level unemployment in DC? Do the proposals of the Mayor and the President to reduce joblessness address those causes? Why has the Council passed over 300 pieces of legislation this year and nothing on unemployment?

Do jobless citizens east of the Anacostia River need to riot, like in London, for us to see them? Or will the rest of the city finally notice the tragedy happening in slow motion before us and start debating its causes and solutions?

It's faster than driving—only 70 minutes from Union Station or 45 minutes from the Rockville station, which is right next to the Rockville Red Line stop. And best of all: toddlers love big trains.

We like to take the Amtrak line which leaves Union Station at 4:05 pm and arrives in Harpers Ferry at 5:16 pm—perfect timing for napping toddlers. The second time we did this trip, the conductor even remembered my son's name and gave him high-five, as well as a kid's book. My little guy was in paradise. Make sure to walk to the lounge car which has floor-to-ceiling windows for great sightseeing on your trip.

If you need to leave later in the day, the MARC train leaves Union Station at 4:55, 5:40, and 7:15pm. It costs less too, but isn't as fun.

Where to stay: You have two choices for accommodations with kids that don't require a car, the Town's Inn and the KOA Campground. We've stayed in both, and which one you stay in depends on whether you plan to spend most of your trip in town or at the campground.

The Town's Inn is the only hotel in downtown Harpers Ferry. You can walk there from the train station in 2 minutes. Best of all, it's in the middle of everything you will want to do.

The KOA Campground is a mile from the train station. You can either walk there or take a National Park Service bus. The walk is a pleasant one through Harpers Ferry and the next-door town of Bolivar, except for one crossing of a 6-lane expressway at an intersection with no walk signal. Most of the walk is part of the Appalachian Trail, so you'll see hikers. I walked to the campground, with my supplies in a big backpack and my little guy in a stroller.

Or you can take the NPS bus, which runs between downtown and the NPS Visitors' Center every 10 minutes. The NPS Visitors' Center is a pleasant 10 minute walk from the KOA Campground. The primary purpose of the bus is to shuttle visitors who drive from a vast parking lot at the Visitors' Center to downtown, which is great because this keeps cars out of downtown Harpers Ferry.

What to do downtown: There are basically 2 fun things for kids to do downtown. They can play in the Shenandoah River, and watch NPS reenactments of 19th century Harpers Ferry. Both are within a 5 minute walk. And pedestrians essentially rule the road, as there are few cars in downtown, so you can feel safe with your kids running around free.

The Shenandoah is a 3 minute walk from downtown. My 2-year-old built sandcastles on the banks of the Shenandoah while throwing rocks in the river for hours. And about every hour, a freight train goes by about 100 feet from the river which leaves the toddlers' mouths hanging open.

For the older kids, the NPS puts on a great show of reenactments throughout the day. Kids can write articles for an old-time newspaper, then churn butter and talk to a Union solder all before lunchtime. Older kids also love the ghost tours which depart from downtown most evenings.

Keep in mind that the downtown restaurants don't currently serve breakfast, as they make most of their money off of day trippers. Fortunately, the Town's Inn sells breakfast food and has refrigerators and microwaves. Also, the Country Cafe serves a fantastic breakfast, and is a 2/3 mile walk from downtown and 3 blocks from the fabulous Bolivar Public Playground.

What to do at the KOA campground: The Harpers Ferry KOA is a kids' paradise. A regular pool and kiddie pool, super pillow for jumping, playground, arcade and mini-golf make the day fly by.

And you don't have to bring a bunch of food to cook, because there are free pancakes on weekends for breakfast and a fully-stocked convenience store on site.

For the parents, a coffee shop and wine store has daily wine tastings on the campground. Anytime you want to go back into town, the NPS bus stop at the Visitors' Center is a 10 minute walk away.

Getting back: The only real challenge to visiting Harpers Ferry without a car is taking the Amtrak train back to DC. The train is supposed to stop in Harper's Ferry 7 days per week at 10:55am, stopping next at Rockville at 11:40am and Union Station at 12:40pm. But it's always late—2 hours late on my first trip and 4 hours late on my second.

The Amtrak trip to Harpers Ferry is generally on time, because the Capitol Limited route is beginning its Union Station to Chicago journey. Coming back to DC, though, it can have been delayed by Norfolk Southern (between Chicago and Pittsburgh) or CSX (between Pittsburgh and Washington). Fortunately, Amtrak has a great mobile site and iPhone app which provide real-time status updates so you can enjoy downtown while waiting for the train.

If you're returning on a weekday and are willing to leave early, MARC is also an option. Trains leave at 5:51am and 6:56am.

Know any other car-free family trip destinations? Mention them in the comments.

Correction: The original version of this article spelled the name of the town incorrectly as "Harper's Ferry" in some places. The correct name has no apostrophe.

Update: The article mentions the lack of breakfast options downtown. The owner of the Town's Inn contacted us with the good news that a shuttered downtown restaurant, the Town's Pub and Eatery, has reopened with service from breakfast through dinner. I haven't tried it, but initial online reviews are positive.

A review of campaign finance records shows that since 2008 Evans has made 29 payments from the Constituent Services Fund totaling $3,341.19 to the DC Treasurer, at PO Box 2014. That is the address for paying parking tickets to the DC DMV by mail.

Schannette Grant is Evans' chief of staff and oversees the fund. In an interview with the Washington Post she said "Sometimes, we will go to a community event at night and park at a meter where it's only good two hours. That would be a work... expense."

The Washington Post article focused on Evans' use of the Constituent Services Fund for sports tickets, and found that practice to be perfectly legal. Meanwhile, Greater Greater Washington contacted the Office of the DC CFO about the legality of Evans' use of the fund to reimburse staff for parking tickets. According to Natalie Wilson, a spokesperson for the CFO, "based on District tax law, the income received is taxable to the recipient/employee."

Greater Greater Washington attempted to contact both Grant and Evans' Director of Communications Andrew Huff via email on Tuesday, inquiring whether the reimbursements were reported as income. Unfortunately there was no reply. An additional voicemail to Evans' office left late on Wednesday also received no reply.

It should be clear that penalties for breaking the law are never tax deductible work expenses. Parking tickets are no exceptions. Parking laws and fines, like other public laws and fines, are meant to serve the public interest. The city government should not be in the business of paying its employees to break the law.

Evans, the long time chair of the council committee that writes tax law, would surely agree with this principle. The fact that he views parking laws and fines as somehow not like other laws and fines sheds light on his failed campaign to make on-street parking cheaper or free.

By setting parking meters at market rates, parking turnover and availability are maximized such that the broadest possible number of drivers can take advantage of on-street parking. Enforcement is critical to ensure this turnover and availability actually occurs. In short, the city's parking rates are designed to maximize the efficiency of the system.

Evans does not seem to recognize these efficiencies. He seems to think of parking as an entitlement. That may explain his unique view of parking tickets as work expenses, and his attempts to deregulate and subsidize parking.

Hardy Middle School is on the northern edge of Georgetown in Ward 2, but is fed primarily by Ward 3 elementary schools. The school has gone through significant turmoil in the past 18 months, triggered in part by opposition to Hardy's principal by Cheh and Ward 3 parents.

Hardy parents learned in December 2009 that long time principal Patrick Pope would be transferred. DCPS officials worried that he was manipulating admissions to favor wealthy out-of-boundary students, to the detriment of in-boundary and poor out-of-boundary students. While Cheh and Ward 3 parents applauded the transfer, many Hardy students and parents protested, and the subsequent temporary principal was removed by Chancellor Henderson after only a semester.

The community ultimately came together in May of this year to select a new principal, Dr. Mary Stefanus, who has received broad support by both those who had supported opposed Pope's transfer. This is largely thanks to Chancellor Henderson's commitment to a transparent, inclusive process for selecting the new principal.

Meanwhile, DCPS also started a process to create a new, citywide, arts-focused magnet school. That's what Hardy had effectively become under Pope, but residents wanted a neighborhood school instead. It will take some time to create this, but Cheh and Ward 3 parents seem to have lost patience and are suddenly abandoning the course of action they themselves pushed for.

After getting what they wanted, at the expense of significant discord in the Hardy community, one wonders what exactly Cheh and Ward 3 parents want out of Hardy. Impatience appears to be driving them to disrespect the authority of the chancellor, and use the council as a school board.

Some Ward 3 parents point to low test scores at Hardy as evidence to support a new school. But that argument is circular. The test score differences between Hardy and other nearby schools result from demographic differences more than anything else, and will thus improve as the new principal recruits in-boundary students.

This is clear by looking at test scores by race at Hardy, which are equivalent to scores at middle schools that are often chosen by Ward 3 parents. In other words, if Ward 3 parents would send their children to Hardy as much as they do to other middle schools, then Hardy's test scores would be comparable to those other schools.

	Reading			Math
School	Black	Hispanic	White	Black	Hispanic	White
Hardy	71.52%	64.10%	97.62%	60.26%	71.79%	92.86%
Deal	75.34%	61.63%	96.82%	75.61%	70.59%	96.50%
Latin	73.28%	N/A	93.39%	65.64%	78.57%	98.35%

Cheh and Ward 3 parents also complain of overcrowding at DCPS's Deal Middle School, where in-boundary students account for 59% of enrollment. But there's no middle school capacity problem in Ward 3. Many Ward 3 parents just don't want to send their kids to Hardy, even after a 2-year transition that they initiated.

Other wards have a greater need for middle schools, but Cheh is pushing the desires of some in her own ward at the expense of a city-wide planning process. Currently, Ward 5 does not have a DCPS middle school. Ward 4 has MacFarland Middle School, built in 1923 and in desperate need of renovation.

Ward 3 already has the newly-renovated and very popular Deal. The also recently-renovated Hardy, located in Ward 2 but serving Ward 3 families, may not meet Ward 3 parents' standards, but still ranks near the top of DCPS middle schools. In terms of simple need, almost every ward is far ahead of Ward 3.

Topher Mathews nails Cheh's proposal on the head:

All of this is really making the issue way more complicated than it needs to be. There is already a process in place to create a true arts focused magnet school. It still has a way to go until it is ready, but it's certainly further along in planning than a new Ward 3 middle school is. And once it does open, the main reason for not using Hardy to ease Ward 3 middle school capacity problems disappears.

Cheh is now the latest council member to have let impatience cause her to forget her vote to do away with the school board. Just as Ward 3 parents appealed to the authority of the Chancellor when council member Jack Evans proposed legislation reinstating Patrick Pope, they should respect the Chancellor's authority now to lead a city-wide planning process.

When District residents hold DC jobs, only 36.1% of them commute by car. But when non-DC residents hold DC jobs, 61.3% of them commute by car, according to 2009 American Community Survey data.

As a result, a whopping 81% of those commuting by car to DC jobs are non-DC residents.

Are city leaders doing anything to prioritize DC residents' access to DC jobs? No. The Transition Report of the Economic Development Committee for then Mayor-Elect Gray, led by Chamber of Commerce head Barbara Lang and former George Washington University president Stephen Joel Trachtenberg, had this recommendation:

Reduce the amount of time people spend driving into and out of the city. The District would stand to retain and attract more businesses that demand ease of access and improvements to quality of life by easing traffic congestion.

Why do we shoot ourselves in the foot like this? It's one thing to complain about taxation without representation, but when we spend our own locally raised tax money primarily to promote employment to those living in the suburbs, we have no one to blame but ourselves.

It's time to end the old, ineffective approaches to fighting unemployment - more roads and more corporate tax holidays. They don't work anymore. A major campaign to economically integrate our city is needed to reverse the decades-long trend that resulted in ever larger roads shuttling a larger percentage of DC's jobholders in and out of the District.

The jobs that could employ a large portion of DC's jobless are there, particularly in the leisure and hospitality sector, which is the second fastest growing sector in DC, adding 10,700 District jobs from 2001 to 2011. Educational and health services, the fastest growing sector, added 26,500 jobs in the same period. The new University of the District of Columbia Community College is furiously training residents for these growing health careers.

Existing job growth is sufficient to provide opportunities for DC's 34,600 unemployed, 8,824 of whom live in Ward 8 where 1 in 4 workers is jobless. Companies that would not locate in the District because the CEO doesn't like driving from Potomac to DC are rarely part of these two sectors, and are thus not needed to address our unemployment crisis.

Furthermore, the surging creative class in the District, whose spending is largely responsible for the growing service sectors, are attracted by public transit and public spaces. That's why their employers, like LivingSocial, are compelled to stay in the District.

We clearly don't need to spend locally-raised tax money to buy more jobs, particularly when 72% of the jobs will go to suburban residents and the jobs city residents need are here and growing. We must make it easier for DC residents than non-DC residents to access jobs in the city, while providing targeted training when needed for expanding job areas in DC.

And the local policies that promote employment for suburban residents over those who live in DC don't end there. DC has an 18% tax on parking garages, but with a loophole so large you could drive an SUV with Virginia plates through it. Garages that provide free parking to employees rather than contracting through a commercial garage are somehow exempt from this DC tax.

This self-defeating deference to suburban commuters is found in the design of streets across the city. My residential street (33rd Street in Georgetown) is primarily used by Virginians crossing the Key Bridge to get to jobs in Upper Northwest. Two of the most iconic streets in our city, M and Wisconsin in Georgetown, have become car sewers for suburban commuters during rush hour. Unsurprisingly, most jobs in Georgetown, including the large percentage of leisure and hospitality positions, are held by Virginians.

Why do we allow this? Let's replace a lane on each side of M and Wisconsin with a dedicated transit lane or widened sidewalks, and push to get streetcar service into Georgetown to help DC residents access Georgetown jobs. Let's cut off my Georgetown residential street and others to through traffic.

If DC is to leverage the disrespect we get in Congress for real unity and action, we must start caring about and investing in our own residents first. Let's start by vastly improving public transportation and bicycling infrastructure to economically integrate our city.

While the writers cite USDA rules that don't allow small farms claiming the exemption to sell chicken across state lines, they overlook the small detail that Congress instructed the USDA in 2008 to end this rule and allow state-inspected chicken to be sold across state lines. The USDA is only now getting around to implementing that rule change.

But the writers went much further than exposing violations of chicken transport rules. A lab paid by the writers found salmonella in chicken from one of the vendors. This is not surprising, as salmonella is not uncommon in chicken. That's why you're not supposed to eat raw chicken.

The article somehow reached the dramatic conclusion, however, that this "illustrates the danger for consumers who think they can find refuge in markets selling food grown locally." An epidemiologist is then quoted saying, "there's no inherent reason why large production is, on balance, more dangerous than a small family farm".

Towards the end of the article, the writers admit that the lab they paid found the same pathogens in chicken from grocery stores in DC as well as farmers markets, which "demonstrates how easy it is to find pathogens—no matter which market or grocery store a consumer patronizes." That this undermines the article's premise doesn't seem to have occurred to its writers.

Instead, in the most irresponsible decision in the article, they name the farmers markets where pathogens were found in chickens but do not name the grocery stores where the same pathogens were found. Furthermore, the writers don't say how much bacteria was found on chickens at each location, how much is naturally occurring in the human gut and how much scientists say is necessary to make someone sick.

The writers apparently didn't ask anyone why they shop at farmers markets. They simply chalk it up to "a national craving for fresh food and the perception that locally grown food is healthier than food mass-produced by big agriculture and sold in grocery stores."

If they had interviewed a single farmers market customer or advocate for free-range, organic chicken (none are quoted in the article) they would have learned that most farmers market patrons are interested in things other than the size and location of the farms.

Consumers go to farmers markets because knowing who raises your food, under what conditions, is the best way to be confident in the safety of your food. Farmers who can tell you these things are likely to be from small, local farms, but that's not the point.

What conditions might farmers market customers want to know about? Chickens bred in factories owned by the largest chicken companies, Tysons and Perdue, are crammed into a space less than half-a-square-foot with thousands of other chickens. Even if they had room to move, they couldn't because they have been genetically modified to grow so much that their legs can't support their oversized bodies.

If those conditions sound like a breeding ground for disease, that's because they are. A University of Georgia study this year found that 28% of chickens in conventional chicken factories have salmonella, compared to 4% of organic chickens. This study wasn't cited in the Post article.

Chicken factories manage disease by giving antibiotics to their chickens, which of course makes it into the chickens served to customers such as children receiving public school lunches. As 80% of antibiotics in America are given to farm animals, this increases the risk of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Millions of consumers are learning about these conditions every year, thanks in part to books like The Omnivore's Dilemma and to documentaries like Food Inc., whose devastating scene of a chicken factory is shown here.

Knowing whether the chicken one purchases was bred under these conditions is what drives customers to farmers markets, not the size or location of the farm.

This article wasn't even written by the Post's own, often high-quality investigative journalists. It came from journalism students at the University of Maryland who made it freely available for reprint. In this case, the article was reprinted word-for-word from the original without a single editorial modification.

Readers of the Post, like all Americans, are increasingly concerned about food safety. Poorly researched scare articles like this one only serve to undermine attempts to truly improve safety.

With so many projects at critical junctures at DDOT, the prospect of a brain drain is a major challenge for new permanent director Terry Bellamy, new chair of the DC Council Transportation Committee Mary Cheh, and ultimately, Mayor Gray.

In any sector, the best talent is attracted not just by the compensation and responsibilities of a job, but also by the opportunity to work on impactful, cutting-edge projects. When employers create an exciting vision, it attracts talent.

Do talented transportation executives no longer view DDOT as a good place to shape the future of urban transportation in America?

Kubly says he's been thinking of leaving DDOT for some time. He considered leaving after Adrian Fenty lost the primary, but stayed partly because of his admiration for Bellamy and amid encouragement from many quarters to finish the streetcar job he started.

However, he cited a general malaise at DDOT that has grown in recent months. Working for the DC government is not seen as positively today as it was a year or two ago. He said that people now say something like, "I'm sorry," when they hear he works for DC, following the many scandals that have recently plagued the government.

Will more talented people leave DDOT? Will the city be able to attract talented and energetic people to the many now-open positions at the agency? They need to hire (or promote from within) a deputy director to fill Bellamy's previous job, a head of planning to succeed Ricks, a head of finance to replace Treat, and now a head of mass transit for Kubly's job.

In addition, there are several key new positions created at DDOT in the budget, including ward planners and, perhaps most importantly, a parking czar.

These questions are no doubt weighing on Bellamy. DDOT is well-funded in the new budget. But funding positions isn't enough if a bad reputation for DC and low morale at DDOT dissuades talented people from applying.

Ultimately, DDOT is much more than Kubly, Ricks, Treat, Klein and Bellamy. There are scores of excellent, visionary, dedicated public servants working in the trenches, spending long nights reassuring nervous residents, crunching numbers, and designing innovative projects.

Instead of prompting accusations, these departures can and should be a turning point, an opportunity to reassure DDOT employees and rebuild any morale problems that may exist.

Mayor Gray and Director Bellamy need to reach out to DDOT's remaining talented planners, engineers, and analysts. They should give personal assurances that they are still committed to a vision for transportation that transcends politics. They should praise and reward those who take risks to effect change, and perhaps apologize for the way political scandals have dampened the mood at DDOT.

We owe that much to the dedicated planners whose work goes largely unnoticed by most DC residents, yet whose dedication is critical to making Washington a great city.